If you’re using a blog on your website to promote your business, competition is heating up — not from competitor blogs, but from social media. Twitter has made changes to its platform to make “threads” easier to publish. Threads, or linked chains of tweets, are similar to blog posts and enable anyone with a Twitter account to mimic a blog. Look for other social platforms to also encourage longer, more bloglike communication.

Why you should use automated emails

To keep blog subscribers and attract new ones, automated blog emails are a great option. They make your blog look more professional, and more importantly, they boost readership and subscriptions. Automated emails can be triggered by various actions. Typical (and effective) blog-related emails include:

• Confirmation emails for new subscribers. These emails first and foremost let the recipient know the subscription is complete, but they also give you a chance to describe the subject matter of your blog, why the blog is valuable reading, and explain the value proposition of your company. Emailing gives you the opportunity to include photos and video, which strengthens the message and makes it more memorable.
• New post alerts. When a new post is published, an email goes to each subscriber with the entire text or an excerpt. RSS feeds are another way to accomplish this, but not all users are familiar with RSS and RSS feed readers. The (very big) advantage of email alerts, besides being convenient for subscribers, is gaining the ability to include sales messages, offers, and other promotional information into the template.
• Comment threads. Blog posts are an avenue to engage your customers and prospects. When readers comment on your post, an email can be sent to them with your response (and responses from other readers) automatically, saving readers the work of navigating back to the post to check the comment thread. In addition to this convenience, the email template again allows you to beef up the images and marketing messages.

It’s the consistent repetition of strong images and marketing messages that makes your company more memorable, so when your services are needed, your blog subscribers immediately think of you.

Setup

Automated emails are set up through an ESP, or email service provider. There are several good ones. Here’s a recent rundown from PCMag to help you find the best fit.

After you’ve selected an ESP, you’ll need to design and code your email template and save it within the ESP platform. You may want to hire a freelance designer to assist with the execution.

Once the template is ready, you can connect your blog’s RSS to the ESP and set up your email triggers and email frequency. For new post alerts, you can launch emails when a new post is published or at some time interval such as weekly or monthly. Launching the email upon publication is usually the best option, unless you publish so frequently that you fear your emails will overwhelm and annoy subscribers. In that case, a weekly or monthly publication alert with excerpts from each post is the better option.

Email alerts for new blog posts have a much higher click-thru rate than links posted on social media. Make sure your email template has prominent and enticing links to your full post and any other pages of your website that appear. Over time, you’ll keep subscribers engaged and visiting your blog, building your brand awareness, and creating new sales opportunities.

About the Author

Brad Shorr is director of content strategy at Straight North, a digital-marketing agency specializing in search engine optimization. He has been an active business blogger since 2005.